 萨摩亚更改时区融入亚洲 Samoa plans to leap* 24 hours into the future, erasing a day and putting a new kink* in the Pacific’s jagged* international date line so that it can be on the same day of the week as Australia, New Zealand and East Asia. Samoa changes a decision it made 119 years ago to stay behind a day and group itself with U.S. traders based in California. Samoa has found its interests lying more with the Asia-Pacific region and now wants to switch back to the west side of the line, which separates one calendar day from the next and runs basically north-to-south through the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Samoa’s change will have a cost: The Polynesian* nation has long marketed itself as the last place on Earth to see each day’s sunset. The prime minister already has a new tourism angle: You can easily celebrate the same day twice, because the next-door U.S. territory of American Samoa will stay on the California side of the date line and remain one day behind. “You can have two birthdays, two weddings and two wedding anniversaries on the same date — on separate days — in less than an hour’s flight across (the ocean), without leaving the Samoan chain,” Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said. Malielegaoi has proposed leaping forward by scratching this year’s Dec. 31 from the calendar and holding New Year’s celebrations one night early, though the date hasn’t been confirmed. The original shift to the east side of the line was conducted in 1892 when Samoa celebrated July 4 twice, giving a nod to Independence Day in the United States. The date line drawn by mapmakers is not mandated by any international body. By tradition, it runs roughly through the 180-degree line of longitude*, but it zigzags* to accommodate choices of Pacific nations on how to arrange their calendars. Nearly as many Samoans now live in Australia and New Zealand as the 180,000 living in the islands, which are located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii and depend on fruit and vegetable exports as well as tourism.(SD-Agencies) | 